


Tender

by HenryMercury



Category: The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: F/F, F/M, Feelings, Ficlet Collection, Grief/Mourning, Morning After, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-28 23:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8467009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: A stab at finding softness under godly exoskeletons.i. Lucifer remembers a warm morning with Sakhmet. (Set vol 1)ii-iii. Baal mourns Inanna and Laura, and even Lucifer, a little bit. (Set vol 3 + post-vol 4)





	1. Heat

Lucifer's been sitting inside this cold glass box looking out at the blank inside of Holloway Prison for so long she's resorted to looking inward for a more interesting view. Not in a particularly reflective sort of way, mind you—that' would be the most futile part of this whole wasteful mess. The only reflection she's taken part in is the one in the glass—still immortally stylish but increasingly weary-looking. No, her thoughts are only reminiscence.

Her mind keeps returning to Sakhmet's bed, an island in a room littered with discarded clothes and bottles, furnished with the sleeping bodies of forgettable mortals. Lucifer has been coming back to this memory for a while: repeatedly recalling the tenderness of her inner thighs and back and breasts, all still scratched and bruised the morning after as only gods' nails and teeth could leave a god's skin. She remembers the sun coming in through the uncovered window—playing with fire when the paparazzi and every fan with a cameraphone was looking for just such an opening, but Lucifer of all people hardly minded that.

Sahkmet was sprawled across most of the bed, occasionally stirring or letting an eye slide a lazy halfway open. A part of Lucifer hoped it was to ensure her bedmate was still with her—the rest knew it more likely that the other god wanted to remind herself who she'd gone to bed with this time. Lucifer looked at the brown arm flung out across the mattress and wondered whether she could situate herself in its embrace and make it look like an accident.

She shifted towards Sakhmet, justifying the move by taking a taste of the bare shoulder closest to her, hands gently combing the long part of the goddess' hair out of the way as her mouth travelled across to the back of her neck.

The low sound of pleasure Sakhmet let out in response to the attention is so easy for Luci to recall that it's even made a few appearances at inopportune moments. The scratches left by Sakhmet's claws faded eventually but that perfect sound was melting through Luci's chest before she knew it had broken the skin, attaching itself to all the invincible and inevitable parts of her.

"Hungry," Sakhmet muttered, though she didn't seem ready to get up and pursue that urge quite yet.

Lucifer was more relieved than disappointed; her interests in getting up or going another round were similarly low priorities at that moment. Lucifer was a god and by all means partial to sex, but Sakhmet was a god _of_ sex, and Lucifer had to admit there was a difference. Add to that supernatural sexual energy the razor's-edge thrill of pleasure bites from someone who might _literally_ decide to eat you... Luci's heart had been in her throat and her throat had been coming up in all sorts of interesting bruises. Having been worn out by something like _that_ was no source of embarrassment.

Even G-o-d needed a rest on the seventh day.

Lucifer tangled her legs in the section of bedsheet that wasn't coiled around Sakhmet and breathed slowly, focusing on the way the sun built a gentle burn the longer she lay still in it. She was made to burn, she mused, but not so contentedly.

"Lucifer," Sakhmet mumbled, and a wave of extra burning warmth shot through Luci. "Lucifer likes Sakhmet," the goddess finished her sleepy observation.

"Sakhmet likes pussy," Lucifer shot back. "I won't bother acting surprised."

She didn't fool herself into thinking that _Sakhmet likes Lucifer_ was a statement that would hold much water—but Sakhmet seemed to like the moment they were sharing, and Lucifer sure as hell did too. Warmth and pleasure, sleeping with danger, the absence of loneliness and a glorious taste of something she could never keep—that was the stuff of heaven, and as much as she would ever dare to expect.

Lucifer ran into Woden on her way back out of Sakhmet's wing in Valhalla.

"Walk of shame?" he asked, voice as obviously smarmy as ever under its robotic tuning.

Lucifer smirked, the reflection smirking back at her from the polished surface of Woden's helmet a better sight than his face would be even if he had one.

"Shame?" she asked. "What's that?"


	2. Recurrence: A

The first day is the hardest. That's what Baal tells himself on the first day. He lays a hand on a still-smouldering piece of wood that might once have been either a floorboard or a roof beam. His skin registers the heat, though of course it doesn't burn. He wishes it _would_ —wishes some external sensation could rival the anger that rages in him, that has to keep raging if it's to evaporate any tears that might want to make their way out through his eyes.

He doesn't _do_ crying.

Baal picks his way through the rubble towards what looks like the centre of the explosion. _This is where he died_ , he thinks, though there's nothing identifiable to indicate Inanna was here. Those burnt bones that survived have already been collected. Baal thinks of the bones. Baal thinks of Inanna, vibrant and so full of... of _everything_ , a huge bright engulfing force of passion contained in that lithe frame. Ever-helpful, Baal's brain lays one image over the other to compare them.

He rethinks the no-crying resolution. If he doesn't cry here, over this, then he'll be lying about what Inanna meant to him. He can lie about that to other people, but if he lies about it to himself then he's pretending none of it was real. He came here to pay his respects, not downplay them.

He lets his eyes prickle and fill silently, blinks as the water lining the rims starts to wobble and overflow, wipes the trails away with his thumbs as they run down his cheeks.

He hears a sniff and is almost emotionally disoriented enough to mistake it for his own until he spots a dark figure at the other end of the scorched yard. The intruder wears black, twin lines of white running back through slick hair. It's a god he knew first by an old name, though Baal doesn't know how she feels about ditching _Cassandra_ in favour of _Urðr_. He can't decide whether or not he cares, either.

Baal's no fan of Cassandra, fellow god or not. If you ask him, Cassandra isn't genuine. She doesn't seem to _feel_ or _believe in_ anything—just takes pictures of what she sees, and theorises it all to shreds with a scowl.

Cassandra, Baal would have said with confidence prior to this moment, does not do crying. Yet here she is.

He takes a few deliberate steps towards her, stomping over a pile of loose debris that crunches under his shoes. Cass hears, turns, and Baal sees the redness of her eyes. He doesn't know what she sees in his, but she nods and turns her back to him again.

Baal knows Cass was a friend of Laura's—kind of, at least. Sometimes they both seemed reluctant, thrown together by circumstance, as much in competition as collaboration. Here she is, though. Urðr is still very new, so there's a possibility Cass is just crying about her own fate... but Baal doesn't really buy that idea. There are a million secluded places she could go to mourn herself that aren't Laura's place.

And hey, Baal thinks, maybe there's something in the unspoken, unspeakable moment they just shared. Maybe this is Baal's new friend-to-be in the Pantheon; he's fresh out of people to lean on right now. The thought makes him ache for the better friends he's lost—for Inanna, as much as ever, and also for Laura. The perfect foil for Cass, always so inconsolably enthusiastic. Laura, who threw herself into everything—who had that in common with Inanna. Inanna liked Laura, Baal knows, and he has no doubt that Laura liked Inanna just as much if not more. He regrets that he never got to see them together in their element. He regrets more than a few things—another of the quiet admissions he won't make to anyone else. Baal doesn't do regrets. Not publicly.

Privately, however, he can't erase the fact that he spent a lot of time—too damn much of it—asking himself what it was Lucifer could give Inanna that he couldn't; what it was that made the guy he loved turn to someone who was all flash, a coat of something so self-indulgently incomprehensible it deflected just enough of the light shone on it to disguise the hollowness underneath as another piece of the character. That time was— _fuck_ , it was so poorly spent, mulling over Lucifer's motives like they really went beyond _Oh look, I can break something good and get laid at the same time._ Baal hates every second he wasted thinking about her instead of thinking about Inanna, who was still there and claiming still to love him.

The worst thing is it's taken Baal until now to realise that the whole thing had nothing to do with Baal _or_ Lucifer. It wasn't about his shortcomings or her temptations—it was only ever about Inanna. Inanna, who didn't come out of his various shells to ever compromise on being who he was again. It took too long for Baal to recognise that Inanna loving him and Inanna sleeping with whoever he liked weren't mutually exclusive. At the time it hadn't seemed like enough. Baal curses himself now for squandering everything their relationship was over the one thing it wasn't.

"You always said two years was enough—that less than two years would be enough too, that even one day of being free would be worth the sudden stop at the end," Baal murmurs, needing to the say the words aloud but keeping the volume down, still conscious of Cassandra's presence. What he's saying isn't for her.

"You said that and I said that it wasn't enough time to me. At least it wouldn't be, if I had any choice in it. You'd say _Look where we are right now, isn't it beautiful?_ and I wouldn't hear you because I was too busy asking myself where we'd be in eighteen months' time."

Abruptly, the words run out. He sheds a few more quiet tears before they run out too. He looks over to where Cassandra was and finds her gone. He makes a path back out through the mess towards the street.

_The second day will be easier_ , he tells himself. _One day at a time._


	3. Recurrence: B

The first day is the hardest. And it is a first day—another one—the first time he comes here after learning the truth about Ananke. Until now, the thing he's been commemorating here, mourning, revving himself up to avenge, has been something other than what really happened. Now he knows. Now all of it is real and fresh all over again.

Laura follows him, which he doesn't object to because it's the wreckage of _her_ house, after all. Laura—or Persephone, as she insists she's to be called now. It's fair enough; Baal goes by his godly name, after all. All of them do. It's only strange because this god is shaped like a girl he already knew pretty well, already liked the way she was. He's changed names for her before, though—'fangirl from hell' just doesn't match that face the way it once did—so it's not like he can't handle the shift to Persephone.

"This is the first time I've been here and not had to mourn you," he tells her. He doesn't know, as he says it, whether it's supposed to lighten the mood or weigh it down. The way the words come out lays bare this confusion.

"Laura did die here," she replies. "Persephone's alive, but Laura still isn't."

"Sure," Baal lets it go, because it feels kind of wrong to argue with a girl over her account of her own death. He's not convinced that Laura's gone, though. He still sees Laura in Persephone—either that, or he always saw Persephone in Laura. A spark that was always there, just like the groundwork for Baal was always in him.

"It's worse, now," he decides. "At least before it was just Baphomet... senseless, selfish, but nowhere near as premeditated, as deceptive. I was _with_ Ananke after— I _trusted_ her, fought for her even after she killed him. I—I almost killed Lucifer for her. Lucifer looked me in the eye and asked me whether I'd do what Ananke was asking of her if I were in her shoes, and I thought, _The difference is I haven't driven myself into a corner by being stupid_. I blamed her, but the truth is if Ananke had chosen to get rid of me first I'd have fallen for it just as hard."

Persephone says nothing, presumably because there's no way to make any of it okay. Definitely not with words—and she's already taken the one drastic action that might truly be called justice. Baal still has mixed feelings about that; behind closed eyes he still sees the way Persephone turned an old woman into a messy splatter. It wasn't like the engulfing of Lucifer's head in frantic light followed by the sudden absence of that head. When Persephone executed Ananke, Baal _saw_ the tearing, heard it, witnessed every stage in the process. He wasn't happy with Ananke alive, but he's not happy with her dead either, and he knows that even Persephone isn't really _happy_. Even when justice is done it doesn't make things like this _okay_. It's a balm, not a cure.

Persephone reaches for Baal's hand and quietly tangles their fingers together. Baal forces thoughts of Ananke's death out of his mind. Depending on the moment, he still can't help flinching away from her when she catches him off guard. It's one of many things he's working on, in the aftermath.

Persephone speaks at last: "We should go. There's not really any point hanging around here anymore. Everyone we came to visit here is gone. We have to move on." The hand in his starts to tug. "And everything we do, we have to do in a hurry."

She's right, but it doesn't feel right. (Baal's still trying to find something that does, these days.)

"Hey," she says, more softly, when he doesn't budge. "Valhalla's waiting, you know the others need us." She looks up at him with Laura eyes—bright and pleading, no death-staring-out-of-darkness Persephone wrath. He feels himself start to give.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Let's get back to them. Shouldn't leave Mini alone too long."

"You're a good guy, Baal," says Persephone, and the tiniest suggestion of a precursor to a smile moves her lips to one side.

"You liked me when you thought I was a bad one," he points out. He thinks back on that Laura with nostalgia, fondness now substituted for any and all irritation he felt towards her at the time.

"I wasn't going to sleep with you if you were the murderer," she says matter-of-factly.

Baal laughs. "Sure you weren't."

He almost trips when a piece of concrete breaks apart under his foot. He isn't watching where he's going, isn't thinking about where he is anymore. He just keeps looking at Persephone—at all the Laura she doesn't seem to believe is still in her, but which he is determined to hold on to even if she won't.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/).


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